The Hiftory of Opinions relating to SAINTS and ANGELS.

THE INTRODUCTION:

THE idolatry of the christian church

began with the deification and proper worship of Jefus Chrift, but it was far from ending with it, For, from fimilar causes, chriftians were foon led to pay an undue respect to men of eminent worth and fanctity, which at length terminated in as proper a worship of them, as that which the heathens had paid to their heroes and demigods, addreffing prayer to them, in the fame manner, as to the Supreme Being himself. The fame undue veneration led them alfo to a fuperftitious respect for their relics, the places where they had lived, their pictures and images, and

indeed every thing that had borne a near relation to them; fo that at length, not only were thofe perfons whom they termed faints, the objects of their worship, but also their relics and images; and neither with refpect to the external forms, nor, as far we can perceive their internal fentiments, were chriftians to be at all distinguished from those who bowed down to wood and stone in the times of paganism.

That this is a moft horrid corruption of genuine christianity I fhall take for granted, there being no trace of any fuch practice, or of any principle that could lead to it, in the fcriptures; but it may be useful to trace the causes and the progrefs of it, from the earliest ages of the chriftian church to the present time. And in order to do it as diftinctly as poffible, I fhall divide the history of all the time preceding the Reformation into two periods; the former extending to the fall of the western empire, or a little beyond the time of Austin, and the latter to the Reformation itself; and I fhall alfo confider feparately what relates to faints in general, to the virgin Mary in particular, to relics, and to images.

SECTION

Of the Refpet paid to Saints in general, till the Fall of the Western Empire.

THE foundation of all the supersti

tious respect that was paid to dead men by chriftians, is to be looked for in the principles of the heathen philosophy, and the customs of the pagan religion. It was from the principles of philofophy, and especially that of Plato, that christians learned that the foul was a thing diftinct from the body, and capable of exifting in a separate conscious state when the body was laid in the grave*, They alfo thought that it frequently hovered about the place where the body had been interred, and was fenfible of any attention that was paid to it.

Christians, entertaining these notions, began to confider their dead as ftill present with them, and members of their fociety, and confequently the objects of their prayers, as they had been

*To give my readers full fatisfaction on this subjec&, I must refer them to my Difquifitions relating to Matter and Spirit, in which the doctrine of a foul is traced from the Oriental to the Grecian philo. sophy, and is fhewn to have been a principle most hostile to the system of revelation in every stage of its progrefs.

before. We therefore foon find that they prayed for the dead, as well as for the living, and that they made oblations in their name, as if they had been alive, and had been capable of doing it themselves. And afterwards, looking upon fome of them, and especially their martyrs, as having no want of their prayers, but as being in a state of peculiarly high favour with God, and having more immediate accefs to him, it was natural for them to pass in time, from praying for them, to praying to them, first as interceffors to God for them, and at length as capable of doing them important fervices, without any application to the Divine Being at all. The idolatrous refpect paid to their remains, and to their images, was a thing that followed of course.

The first step in this business was a custom which cannot be faid to have been unnatural, but it fhews how much attention ought to be given to the beginnings of things. It was to meet at the tombs of the martyrs, not by way of devotion to them, but because they thought that their devotion to God was more fenfibly excited in those places; and few perfons, perhaps, would have been aware of any ill confequence that could have followed from it. Indeed, had it not been for the philofophical opinions abovementioned, which were brought into christianity by those who before held them as philofophers, and which gradually infinuated themselves into

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the body of christians in general, it might have continued not only a harmless, but an useful custom.

Chriftians meeting for the purpose of devotion at those places, they would naturally bless God for fuch examples of piety and fortitude as the martyrs had exhibited, and excite one another to follow their examples. Indeed their very meeting together at thofe places for that purpose, was doing them so much honour, as could not fail, of itself, to make other perfons ambitious of being diftinguifhed in the fame manner after their deaths.

It was also an early custom among christians to make offerings annually in the name of the deceased, especially the martyrs, as an acknowledgment, that though they were dead, they confidered them as ftill living, and members of their respective churches. These offerings were ufually made on the anniversary of their death. Cyprian fays, that " if any person appointed one "of the clergy to be a tutor or curator in his “will, these offerings fhould not be made for "him." So that, as they confidered the dead as still belonging to their communion, they had, as we here find, a method of excommunicating them even after death.

Opera, Epif. p. 3.

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